


I am all silence or storms around you (Or the seven times Maggie didn't know what to say and the one time she did)

by canadianpunk



Category: Saving Hope
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 06:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11480286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canadianpunk/pseuds/canadianpunk
Summary: Maggie always seems to get a little bit dumbstruck around Syndey. This is just a series of drabbles in Maggie's headcannon working through her speechlessness. It follows their relationship timeline from season 3 to 5 and a little bit beyond.





	I am all silence or storms around you (Or the seven times Maggie didn't know what to say and the one time she did)

1.  
The first time it happens you feel almost certainly like the floor just fell out from underneath you. It’s unsettling for a number of reasons. The most prominent in your mind being that you didn’t even have a chance to crack wise in response. Which is annoying because you don’t like being shocked into silence. As a matter of fact, it’s your general disposition to always have something to say, ill advised or otherwise. However, all it took was a single second and a sweep of red hair for you to be flat out dumbstruck; and if you’re being honest, desperate to do it again.

As for doing it again, you’re pretty sure you’d have better odds at the high buy in tables in Vegas. Although what do odds really matter when 15 minutes ago you were million to one confident that your mentor barely even liked you. Which can’t be the case anymore because most sane humans don’t generally make a habit out of sneak attack kissing people they don’t even like. 

“Mental note, assess Dr. Katz for any signs of imminent psychotic break.” You mutter under your breath as you flop down onto one of the on call bunks; absolutely writing off any attempts at doing anything even remotely productive for the rest of the day. You’re a hopeless case now and your brain is still hanging out somewhere on the floor right beside something that closely resembles a fibrillating heart. 

2.  
The second time it happens you’re a mixture of amused, bemused, and annoyed. You’re pretty sure that a kiss is never just nothing. And, without even pumping up your ego too much, you’re also reasonably confident that you are a damn good reason to reconsider a rushed engagement. It would only be fair for there be some consideration. It’s not that you want her to reconsider because you’re suddenly desperate to see what dating Sydney Katz would be like. Nope it’s strictly because it’s not right for there to be no second thoughts from that fiendish little imp after she’s commandeered all of the most functional parts of your brain as of late. Not to mention also causing the particularly infuriating problem of having your heart making a permanent residence out of your stomach. 

“How can it mean nothing? It can’t mean nothing when I’m now unreasonably jealous of that stupid coffee mug.” You find yourself musing under your breath, drawing a few concerned looks from some of the other staff in the lounge. But you’re nowhere near the psych floor so you’re safe for now. That coffee mug though, might not be safe at all. Staring at it now you remember how tightly her hands held it and you lament how they only incidentally brush against yours. And you shouldn’t remember her lips on it, but you do, and it aches that you have something to compare that feeling to. And “Damn it. Stop it.” You’re being stupid. 

“Something wrong Dr. Lin?” Just absolutely everything. Well, if you’re going to keep heading down the road to becoming Hope Zion’s newest crackpot, may as well embrace it. 

“Oh just having a little porcelain mug envy Dr. Miller.”

Yep, that’s right. Lock this girl up. Certifiable. But, there’s at least one saving grace to this. And it makes you quirk your eyebrow and smile sadly to yourself; at least you’re not hell bent on marrying someone you don’t love and barely even know. 

Nope. You’re just the crazy one who is hopelessly lusting after that person. Suddenly sinking into the cracks of the couch seems like the most appealing idea you’ve had all day.

3.  
The third time comes in a dark on call room. And you find yourself suddenly loving the quiet, as the only sounds are two humming hearts and deep sated breathing. You chuckle a little as Sydney’s fingers dance along your ribcage. 

“What’s so funny?” Of course she would ask a question of you when you’re 350% certain you won’t be able to string together an intelligible five word sentence. Right now, with her legs tangled with yours and her fingers writing poetry on your skin, the babbling of babies would be on par to Chaucer compared to the gibberish that will probably tumble it’s way out of your mouth. But these increasingly frequent incidences of Sydney induced speechlessness have taught you that you can use your mouth for things other than forming words. So as a response you simply smile, catch her hand in yours and place a kiss to each fingertip, a show of appreciation for how well they have just treated the curves of your body. 

Sydney has beautiful hands. You’ve watched them dancing through procedures in the operating room for hours. You might have even been having a love affair with her hands: small, but strong, confident, and sure in every movement. And now you can add urgent, insistent, and tortuously soft to the list. Now that you have first hand experience with the beauty of Sydney’s hands, that damned coffee mug’s got nothing on you.

Sydney doesn’t ask more questions of you now. You wonder if it’s because she’s become aware of the permanent brain damage she may have caused you. Or maybe she’s experiencing some loss of her own mental faculties. Either way, after you’ve finished evoking praise on her fingers she captures your lips with hers again in one of the most perfect kisses you’ve ever received. 

You want her. You don’t care if you ever talk again. You could just stay here like this in this on call room forever. But you will have to talk again. And you’re not going to like it. Because you know that Sydney Katz is too practical for this kind of passion. And you might be too passionate for her kind of practical. 

4.  
The fourth time doesn’t happen when she tells you that she’s still going through with the wedding. No, you’re angry enough then to form a response. It also doesn’t come during all of the days leading up to her eventually breaking it off with Herschel. During those times you’re actively deciding not to speak because you know better. You know that she’s not going to choose you right now. No matter what you say. She has a mountain to move in her soul before she can do that and it’s more important to support her than to fight for your own agenda. The fourth time doesn’t come until the day you find out that Dr. Katz has just up and left. 

“Was Sydney Katz real?” You’re sitting on the couch with Alex. It’s the only thing you can think to say. And with how often the vanished red head made you question your sanity, you think it’s a legitimate question to ask. She took your head and your heart with her and now you don’t know if anything was or is real. 

Alex pulls you in with one arm as your tears start to brim over. “She was as real as you falling in love with her was.” Yea you did fall, hard and completely. Nothing else will ever be good enough for you now. And there’s no point in saying anything at all anymore. 

5.  
Number five is one of your favourites. Which you’re pretty sure would be considered odd by a normal person’s standards considering it happens after you almost died and are lying in an intensive care bed. But it’s one of your favourites because now you know that you’re loved back. Even though you don’t know if the elusive red head is going to stay in your life this time. Right now she’s here. Sitting on your bed. Holding your hand with both of her hands that you love so much. That you remember so well. 

It’s also odd that number five is one of your favourites because, even though you’re pretty sure that Dr. Katz loves you back, she did end up leaving you again. For a girl and another country. It could be considered progress that it’s for a woman instead of a man this time. But an ocean and miles and miles of foreign soil complicate any plans you might try and concoct to steal her for your self. 

You don’t have anything to say when Alex comes up and tells you about how Sydney sat vigil at your bedside. Or how everyday when she was filling in for you during your recovery she’d go to your locker, open it, and run her fingers along the sleeve of your white coat. Slowly, all the way down it’s length ending in a closed fist at the place that your fingers would meet hers if you’d been wearing it instead of laid up on your couch watching daytime talk shows. 

You realize that it’s a beautifully enraging fact that Dr. Katz can stun you in to silence by loving you and leaving you at practically the same time. Not just once but so far three painful and confusing times. And the truth is, you’d probably keep letting her do it for the rest of your life. You’re certain that sporadic Katz drive bys would be infinitely better than nothing at all. It only breaks your heart a little bit when you realize that it probably means you’ll die alone, surrounded by a bunch of entirely different kind of cats. 

Number five is one of your favourites because at the end of it, the first time you opened your locker after Sydney left for what you’re sure is the last time, you found a blue scrub cap hanging on a hook. It smells like the first time, the last time, and all the times in between packaged up in faded blue cotton. And it’s yours to keep now even if the head that wore it is on the body that you crave in a country such a long way away. 

6.  
Number 6 is a doozey and it takes you several days and blatant abuse of the airplane mode on your phone before you finally get over how tongue tied and scared you are. Except you don’t really get over how scared you are because even when you finally start forming articulate sentences, every time you close your eyes you still imagine seeing Sydney’s back turned to you as she walks away. All the while that you were falling in love with her she would come to you just to leave you over and over again. That’s what you’ve come to know of Dr. Katz. Love and leaving. 

Except this time she’s pursuing you for everyone to see. This isn’t an on call room. The arena you’re playing in now is front and center with surround sound for everyone to see and hear. And that excites you and terrifies you. This time you want her and she wants you. And you find out that she wants kids like you want kids. And you already know that she’s driven like you are driven. You smile and she smiles. And her hands, they feel so perfect underneath yours. Just like they felt so perfect running all over you. 

So it’s no surprise that when she promises not to leave you again you have no problem falling into her kiss. And you spend the rest of that night with some part of you in constant contact with her. You remember what you said to Alex so long ago and now you’re certain that Sydney Katz is very real. And she takes great care proving that to you all through the late hours of the night into the warm glow of morning. 

The sixth time it happened is when you started to realize that with this woman it could sometimes be better not to speak at all. What she says to you by pressing her limbs to yours is more eloquent and powerful than any sonnet from Shakespeare or anastrophe from Yoda.

7.  
The seventh time finds you standing in Pearson International and Sydney has all but plainly said she wants to grow old with you. You’re happy to be a little bit lost for words right now because if you weren’t you’re pretty sure you’d just blurt out ‘marry me’ right in the middle of the airport. Thankfully you don’t and instead stick with a cheesy play on a famous Hollywood one liner. But you know you’re going to do it one day. You’re crossing an ocean for her and you’re absolutely going to marry her. 

1.1  
The first time you ever know exactly what to say when Sydney Katz has made you dumbstruck comes a year and a half into your officially serious relationship. It happens on a completely normal Sunday. You both have the day off and have made no plans or commitments. On days like this Sydney always wakes up first and lets you sleep in. She says she doesn’t have the heart to wake you especially when she knows you’re probably worn out from the night before and you look too cute fast asleep with a quirk of a smile on your face. 

You make your way into the living room of the flat you share at around 1130. You couldn’t ignore the hunger grumbling away in your stomach any longer. You also couldn’t ignore the desperate need to kiss your girlfriend, to feel her and breathe in every inch of her. Every day you fall further for her, you’ve fallen so hard and so far you didn’t even realize it was possible to feel this way about anyone or anything. And those are the thoughts swirling through your head when you find Sydney curled up on the couch reading a book. And you just die. 

There’s something about how she wears her glasses on the weekends. And how she insists on borrowing real books from the library because ‘the experience doesn’t feel as real unless I can flip a page and feel the edges of the paper.’ You don’t know if it’s the glasses or the book in one hand and coffee mug in the other. It’s probably just the magical combination of all things Sydney. But you find yourself forming the words before you can stop yourself and you’ve never been surer of anything.

“Marry me.” Sydney almost spills out the contents of her coffee mug all over the book she’s reading but, luckily, surgeon like reflexes save the both of you from a damaged book fee. 

“What?” She looks beautiful, confused but beautiful. You don’t have a ring but you don’t think that matters right now. All that matters is that in one and a half years of being together and all that time spent dancing around one another before that, no one has ever loved you the way Sydney Katz has. She loves you in all the ways you want to be loved. You walk over and take the coffee mug and book out of her hands. Those hands that fit so perfectly in yours. You kiss her and you’re gone. Every time you kiss her you die and come back to life a million times over. 

“Marry me Sydney Katz.”

Sydney smiles and laughs, “Maggie Lin, I think you’ve lost your mind.” And you have lost you mind. You lost it all those years ago when the floor fell out from under your feet in the on call room and it hasn’t made its way back to you entirely since. Sydney kisses you this time and her hands stroke your cheeks and neck; running down your arms to find your hands and, pulling back, she tangles your fingers together. “But I’ll still marry you.”

You quirk your eyebrow up and can’t help but notice her breath catch. She’s told you more than once that your eyebrow quirk is one of her favourite mannerisms of yours. “So that’s a yes?”

“Yes.”

And then you’re completely forgetting the fact that you were hungry and you fall into a mess of limbs that fit together like puzzle pieces. Neither one of you will do much talking for the rest of the day as your lips have found better things to do and your hearts hammering in your chests will say all that needs to be said.


End file.
